Cottage

The piece about William Saroyan by Keith Abbott with revealing photos by Stuart Watson was of special personal interest to me. I had the rare opportunity to see some of the clutter Saroyan had accumulated in his simple home--really a cottage--in Malibu, sometime in the '50s. It struck me as being a well-organized setup, as he pointed out his manuscripts, personal correspondence, clippings, memorabilia, et al. with relish and enthusiasm. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing and why and for what eventual purpose.

This is for travelers like me who have become saturated with group/tour travel with the accompanying pell mell rush through European countries. I had been doing that for more than six years when I suddenly found the prospect of additional travel repugnant. One lucky day I discovered in Jerry Hulse's column a mention of cottages for rent in the marvelous Cotswold area of England. I arranged for accommodation at a very old cottage a few miles from Bristol and eight miles from Bath.

Deer came to drink this morning and left their hoofprints on the beach where Lilie Brown Parsons walked in solitude as a young woman at the turn of the century. Nearby stands a storm-scarred wooden windmill with hand-carved propellers, a failed attempt by Parsons' son, Dave, to generate electricity for the cottage. It sits beside the covered boathouse Parsons' husband pushed across the ice in 1897 and lived in with the carpenter while the cottage was being built.

At last, a bona fide resort on 76 acres of Newport Coast ("Marriott Plans Time Shares on Newport Coast," Jan. 7). Now maybe the publicly owned Crystal Cove Historic District can be restored to its owners, the people of California. We have waited nearly 20 years since its purchase to enjoy an overnight stay in the park's beachfront cottages. The Crystal Cove Historic District is a 13-acre portion of the 2,800-acre Crystal Cove State Park, named for its historic cottage enclave, its gemstone.

On Dec. 17, The Times ran an article titled "Ritzy Resort or Rustic Retreat?" about Crystal Cove State Park and the planned resort development. There are several inaccuracies I would like to clarify. The article states, "The residents must raise $35 million, the cost of refurbishing the cottages. . . ." The residents of Crystal Cove are not involved in the alternative plans being formulated for the project, nor are they in any way involved in raising money for the effort. The article states, "Leaking septic tanks are sending raw sewage into the protected waters, which are dolphin birthing grounds."

Thank you for "Solo Performances" by Diane Wedner (Aug. 1) on the exceptional women who have forgone the dream of romantic chivalry and have purchased their own homes instead. Their appreciation of an alternative community is also felt among many single female renters, like myself, who simply cannot afford the same degree of domestic security.... We must still endure landlords who evict with impunity, exploiting the vulnerability of their tenants and jeopardizing their safety. For instance, rather than respecting my right of privacy as provided by California law, the owner of the cottage I am renting has given me a 30-day notice.

Former Grand Valley State University quarterback Cullen Finnerty, who had been missing since Sunday, has been found dead, according to Lake County, Mich., Undersheriff Dennis Robinson. Robinson told the Associated Press that a cause of death has not been determined, but authorites did not suspect foul play. "There was nothing obvious to us, to the view, of anything that would have caused his death," Lake County Sheriff Robert Hilts said, according to the Detroit Free Press . Finnerty's family told police the 30-year-old ex-football star might have suffered “a mental episode” prior to his disappearance Sunday while on a fishing trip near his family's cottage northeast of Baldwin, Mich.

Some homeowners might consider a 20-foot Ficus nitida rooted in the middle of a 5,400-square-foot lot to be a liability, especially when planning a major remodel. But architect Carlos Zubieta isn't one of those people. The two-story glass addition that he completed with his wife, Tatiana Barhar, also a designer, practically embraces the towering tree, transforming a 650-square-foot Venice cottage into a fresh, contemporary family residence centered on the ficus they spent years nursing to health.

Side by side on Santa Ana Avenue in Belmont Shore, Jack Berutich's dream house and Mark Swales' retirement cottage are examples of the high and the low of a controversy over dwelling heights that has festered in Alamitos Bay communities for years. Swales and Berutich, next-door neighbors since 1978, like one another. Each says the other is a good neighbor. But Swales and Berutich differ sharply on rival height-limit proposals now before the City Council.